Can anyone translate Mr Frisch's "problem with the graph", since all it does is outline the contingent paths to public policies which then may or not take into account his forever dodgy "externalities"? (Then again, perhaps such graphs are not everyone's forte.)

And then a little primer on risk - as explained numerous times in these pages, it all starts with the assessment of probabilities that are attached to future contingencies. The assessment of climate change probabilities is a Bayesian affair which involves heavy doses of subjectivity, and a methodology in which few readers show interest for various reasons.

Mr. Frisch, please elaborate on your second paragraph above. What is the nature of your "negative externalities" wrt economically preventable? Perhaps if you could quantify what costs are worth incurring to prevent what is "preventable"?

StevenF 929am - The deficiencies in your 804am comment speak for themselves, there is little I can add to my 919am.

As an example, the graph was moot on the inclusion of externalities in 'economic feasibility'. Most readers understand that such attribution is a complex affair that involves both politics and economics, and as such may or not consider externalities, the softest part of economics (an already soft field describing human action).

That a leftist like you would then dun the explanatory power of the graphic for not explicitly calling out that dodgy detail says it all about your understanding or agenda or, perhaps, both.

For others who may find the above graphic a 'problem', it's only purpose is to outline the sequence of decisions that must precede any public policies to either attempt to prevent catastrophic global warming, or to devote more effort to accurately monitor its progress and research feasible responses. Skeptics, of course, argue that existing science doesn't even support that the current change in climate portends catastrophic global warming.

As a person who has been stung by the unforgettable and unforgiving Law of Dimishing Returns, could someone help me out (again).
The question is basaciaaly this in the context of man made Climate Change:
Say we mandate all vehicles to get 75 mpg, including the #1 selling vehicle in America, aka, the Ford Ranger. At what point does reducing our carbon footprint make any tangible difference in man made Global Warming?
If we reduce our output of various and sundry bad stuff from the air and water by another 70%, will that have a direct correlation to the reduction of human activity caused Climate Change? If we reduced our carbon footprint to zero, grounded all private jets and aero planes heading to Paris, dropped a bunch of Nuetron Bombs on China, India, and Las Vegas, would man caused Climate Change drop in direct or even indirect lockstep?
At what point does our reduction of that ozone stuff (or carbon stuff) no longer have any measurable impact on humanoid caused Climate Change and thus we enter the point of Dimishing returns, negatively impacting our Qof with no positive impact on humanoid caused Climate Global Warming Changie???

BillT 1156am - Excellent and oft asked questions Mr Tozer, which the True Believers cannot answer, and that includes their coterie of consensus scientists. Since we really don't know the impact of atmospheric CO2 on either weather or climate, the TB's are pushing faith-based nostrums that will have a much more predictable impact on creating the global governance they crave than it will provide for prognosticating climate.

And check out the recent study by Stanford 'earth scientists' to confirm that no temperature hiatus exists. To do that they claimed to have invented a "novel statistical framework that was developed specifically for studying geophysical processes such as global temperature fluctuations, Rajaratnam and his team of Stanford collaborators have shown that the hiatus never happened."

What they seem to have discovered is an extended memory polynomial filter that is an established tool in estimation theory. Correctly feeding 'sub-sampled' temperature data into it will, of course, cause it to ignore 'minor fluctuations' such as the last 15+ year temperature pause, and continue with the long-term trend. My colleagues in the field will also recognize this "novel statistical framework" as just reducing the bandwidth of their filter (estimator). I will attempt to get a copy of their paper and report back. Here's the link reporting their find -http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/september/global-warming-hiatus-091715.html

My problem with the Stanford study is they used NOAA adjusted and unadjusted data bases. A simple graph of this data does not show any pause. No pause because the data has been adjusted and adjusted again, plus the data is contaminated by poor siting of the weather stations that data was taken from. The pause is shown in the two satellite records, UAH and RSS.

The pause is in the real data, not in the jiggered government climate data files with the exception of the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) which does not need any adjustments. The USCRN was completed in 2008 and is showing not only a pause, but a slight cooling for the US. There is no need for new statistical analysis techniques from the Stanford team of climate change leeches, just look at the real unadjusted data and you can see the pause.

"Dr Evans is an expert in Fourier analysis and digital signal processing, with a PhD, and two Masters degrees from Stanford University in electrical engineering, a Bachelor of Engineering (for which he won the University medal), Bachelor of Science, and Masters in Applied Maths from the University of Sydney."

I hope that these credentials are considered adequate to those on both sides of this thorny issue!

I went to Roseville last night to attend the meeting put together ny Tom McClintock. He has the Army Corps of Engineers head guy and two women in PR. What a good example of the sad state of American government. Most of the meeting was the plea for money. Oh we will be so good if only we had more money.

Also, because the crowd (100 maybe) was a possibly hostile one, we were assured by the ACOE how they are so receptive and helpful to the public. You have a problem, just contact us and we'll fix it.

Why would a person go to the source of the problem for the solution? Anyway I said I have been waiting 8 years for a letter they said would take a week.

These guys are as inefficient as the Sierra Fund and SBC. And they sure know how to waste the taxpayers money, all of them.

The crowd was courteous and McClintock was great. He would not allow them to BS us.

The answer is really quite simple and its amazing that the original studies did not daylight it.

Unlike the Bakken and the Marcelllus formations the Monterey formation lies along a major fault line, the San Andreas, and the formation has been folded upon itself. That means that with current and foreseeable drilling technologies is is almost inaccessible. (Even if California had the water necessary)

Why is "study" in quotation marks? I think you just answered the question about America being an 'anti-intellectual' nation :)

Seems that I (and Instapundit) are the gift that just keeps on giving.

Enjoy!

"This Changes Everything, the movie version of Naomi Klein’s bestselling book by that title, is a moment of astonishing candor on the environmentalist left. For decades, conservatives have argued that environmentalism is a cover for centrally managed economies, wealth redistribution, and intrusive government regulations. Klein comes out and says that indeed, environmentalism is exactly that. Conservative critics, she says in so many words, “are right.” Climate change is an opportunity to write “a new story.

We are not reading about this finding in the lamestream press yet, but Rush Limbaugh mentioned Dr. Evan's discovery in the final hour of his program today. He mentioned that AU and some US climate blogs were the only sources so far.

"The Sierra Club’s president got schooled on global warming science by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz during a Tuesday congressional hearing, and after being left dumbstruck on live television the environmental activist finally issued a response to Cruz’s questions.

The Sierra Club’s response, however, still doesn’t answer Cruz’s questions about the 18-year “pause” in global warming. In fact, the Club does need to issue a retraction because Cruz was correct that satellites show there’s been no significant warming for nearly two decades."